This is apparently the year of the Deer. They are a total nuisance. I guess its karma, but it still isn't any easier to swallow.
It all started with some poor trucker sucker who apparently did not know how to secure a load of hay. He lost six of the really large bales of Alfalfa off the truck along the Hwy just below Crooked creek on Hwy 95. Four of the bales were broken open, but two of them were still intact. It was obvious that he either did not know or accepted the loss and just kept going. There was no way that he was going to be able to recover them. These bales weigh approximately 1200 or more pounds apiece.
Well Ezra, our horse, would enjoy some of the high quality hay, so I went home, picked up our "car hauler" trailer, loaded my quad on to the front, facing backwards and chained it down. Karen and I drove down there, and backed up to one of the bales. I took the ramps and set them in front of the bale and winched it on the trailer. After unloading it, we went back and pulled the other one on as well, taking them back to the house. The other four broken bales were picked up by some one with a horse trailer, so nothing was wasted.
I am not sure if the increase in Deer here at the house is due to the exodus of the Deer that used to live in the area burned by the "Long Draw Fire", or if it is just due to the fact that the ranchers have pulled all their cattle out of the burned areas and stuck them on the home ranches. I do know that the cows on the ranch surrounding me have grazed the ground to almost nothing. The ranch surrounding me ? sells tags for trophy Deer, and have quite a herd that they cultivate, or take advantage of. They have some really nice bucks on their place and they do not shoot the little ones, just the monsters.
In any case, whether it is karma or the lack of food, but those two bales of Alfalfa have called in more Deer than I have ever seen. They are not skinny either, they are butterballs, and they are afraid of nothing.
I knew that there was a "four point" (Western count) and a bunch of does using the hay, and being curious I put a trail cam on the stack to see what was using it. What I found was that they were feeding off of it almost all night. They were feeding off of it in two hour segments, with a break in between of an hour or two, then back again. All night long. Well that was too much. I had thought to just leave them alone, but they were breaking the bales apart and scattering them all around, plus the number kept growing. Something had to be done.
Well I tried yelling at them, they just waited until I went back in the house and went back to what they were doing before. Next step was bird shot ( #9 ) in the shotgun. The damn things would just stand there or run off 50 yards or so and stop to watch. Well that was a disappointment, so I had some M 80's that were about 15 years old, and I figured that I could light them and shoot them among them with a sling shot. That didn't scare them either. I figured that I just needed to keep it up and they would soon see how scary and fierce I was, but they still treat me with contempt.
I was racking my usually fertile and sneaky brain for a solution to the problem, and think I may be on the right track for most of them.
I took the drive way alarm and stuck it on the hay stack to tell me when they are there. I also parked the car by the stack. Now when the alarm goes off I hit the "panic button " on the car keys.
https://vimeo.com/54645763 password - owyheeflyer
The first night I started at 7 PM and continued off and on until we went to bed. I took the receiver for the alarm into the bedroom and put the keys on my night table. I was woken up around 14 times that night. I was pretty grumpy the next day, but felt better. The large deer have left us and now I just have a few young ones to convince.
There is a young buck that I have run out of here three times so far tonight. Not sure what I am going to do. This seems to be working better than anything that I have tried so far, but poor ole Ezra hasn't had a decent nights sleep since this started. He hates car horns and spot lights.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Odds and ends
Today was cold and foggy at least until about 2 PM. We loaded Jessie up for another attempt at Ducks on ditches at the ranch. Upon our arrival, I gave Jessie to Karen while I checked the little pond. Unfortunately it is almost frozen over and there were no Ducks at all.
We went to the other side of the field to check the creek thinking to find Ducks there. Nothing there either, so we went on up the ditch, finally finding a bunch of Mallards in the next field. I positioned Karen and began walking up the ditch in an attempt to bracket them. When I felt that I had enough room, I struck Jessie's hood and stuck her up in the air. All the horses in the field came rumbling down to see what I was doing. Jessie paid no attention until they started to surround us. That was too much and off she went and so did all the horses.
She began to get some altitude, and I began to edge my way to the creek. Apparently the horses spooked a Jack Rabbit, who in turn spooked the Ducks before any one was ready. Of course Jessie was out of position, and I was too far from the ditch to turn them out into the field, so once again the whole thing went down the tubes.
I started trudging up the creek, and Jessie followed along, but not really high enough to do any good. The Ducks would flush up the ditch, always when she was out of position and she would force them down into the creek again. Finally she ran out of steam and sat down on the ground in front of me. I attempted to walk around her thinking that I would let her rest and perhaps get into a better position to flush when she again came overhead. It was a good plan, just not one that Jessie wanted to follow. She got into the air again and began flying at me, trying to get me to throw the lure. I refused so after three or four fly by's, landed on my shoulder. I put my fist up, but there was nothing on it, so she flew on again and resumed flying by me. She again landed on my shoulder, so I gave up and put a Starling in my fist and she jumped on the fist to eat. Perhaps tomorrow we can get the flush right for a change.
All this walking took a lot longer than I had allowed, so when we got back to the house it was after four PM. Darkness is complete by 5:15 PM so we were on a bit tighter schedule than I wanted. We decided to fly here at the house to see if we could catch one of the ones who are trimming my lawn to nothingness. We could stand to lose some, as the grass is shorter than the rabbit turds.
We turned the girls loose after securing the Chickens for the night. They took a perch on the gate posts at the edge of the yard. We were walking towards them, when Yogi took off, sailing over the garden. She did a wing over and grabbed a Jack, but it pulled away from her. It was not so lucky with Puddy however and the first rabbit had died and we weren't out of the yard.
She had caught it behind the Grape arbor, and between the two of them it was dead before I even got there.
I pulled them out into the open and gave them a chunk of rabbit to eat as a reward. We hunted for a bit more on the flat behind the house, but other than pulling some hair out of a slow one, we didn't have time enough to catch another one.
I have been having some trouble, make that a lot of trouble with Deer coming in and eating my hay.
I am not sure how many there are, but they are making a mess. I have tried shooting them with bird shot, but they refuse to take no for an answer. I had just about resigned myself to leaving them alone. I decided last night to put a trail cam out there to get some idea of how many there were. What I didn't know was that they spent most of the night eating as much Alfalfa as they could. They first showed up at 9 PM. At 12 AM I went out and scared them off. They came back at 2:40 and stayed until 3:30,back again at 5:48 and stayed until 7:30.
I have been racking my brain all night and day as to how to take care of the problem. Unfortunately I don't have enough freezers or people that can eat that much venison, so I needed to think of something else. Luckily the Moon is full so that I can by using bino's see if they are at the stack.
I doubt if its going to do much good, but so far the only thing that I can come up with is to try to make it as unpleasant as I can. I took the Driveway alarm and stuck it on the hay stack along with the trail cam, so that I can tell without peering out of the windows if they are there. I also parked the car by the stack.
The alarm just went off while I was typing this blog, so Karen and I went into the back bedroom and I checked with the bino's. Sure enough the Deer were there. I gave Karen the glasses so that she could see, and then I hit the "panic button" on the car. Lights flashing, horn honking, deer peeing down both legs. We will see who gives up first.
We went to the other side of the field to check the creek thinking to find Ducks there. Nothing there either, so we went on up the ditch, finally finding a bunch of Mallards in the next field. I positioned Karen and began walking up the ditch in an attempt to bracket them. When I felt that I had enough room, I struck Jessie's hood and stuck her up in the air. All the horses in the field came rumbling down to see what I was doing. Jessie paid no attention until they started to surround us. That was too much and off she went and so did all the horses.
She began to get some altitude, and I began to edge my way to the creek. Apparently the horses spooked a Jack Rabbit, who in turn spooked the Ducks before any one was ready. Of course Jessie was out of position, and I was too far from the ditch to turn them out into the field, so once again the whole thing went down the tubes.
I started trudging up the creek, and Jessie followed along, but not really high enough to do any good. The Ducks would flush up the ditch, always when she was out of position and she would force them down into the creek again. Finally she ran out of steam and sat down on the ground in front of me. I attempted to walk around her thinking that I would let her rest and perhaps get into a better position to flush when she again came overhead. It was a good plan, just not one that Jessie wanted to follow. She got into the air again and began flying at me, trying to get me to throw the lure. I refused so after three or four fly by's, landed on my shoulder. I put my fist up, but there was nothing on it, so she flew on again and resumed flying by me. She again landed on my shoulder, so I gave up and put a Starling in my fist and she jumped on the fist to eat. Perhaps tomorrow we can get the flush right for a change.
All this walking took a lot longer than I had allowed, so when we got back to the house it was after four PM. Darkness is complete by 5:15 PM so we were on a bit tighter schedule than I wanted. We decided to fly here at the house to see if we could catch one of the ones who are trimming my lawn to nothingness. We could stand to lose some, as the grass is shorter than the rabbit turds.
We turned the girls loose after securing the Chickens for the night. They took a perch on the gate posts at the edge of the yard. We were walking towards them, when Yogi took off, sailing over the garden. She did a wing over and grabbed a Jack, but it pulled away from her. It was not so lucky with Puddy however and the first rabbit had died and we weren't out of the yard.
I pulled them out into the open and gave them a chunk of rabbit to eat as a reward. We hunted for a bit more on the flat behind the house, but other than pulling some hair out of a slow one, we didn't have time enough to catch another one.
I have been having some trouble, make that a lot of trouble with Deer coming in and eating my hay.
I have been racking my brain all night and day as to how to take care of the problem. Unfortunately I don't have enough freezers or people that can eat that much venison, so I needed to think of something else. Luckily the Moon is full so that I can by using bino's see if they are at the stack.
I doubt if its going to do much good, but so far the only thing that I can come up with is to try to make it as unpleasant as I can. I took the Driveway alarm and stuck it on the hay stack along with the trail cam, so that I can tell without peering out of the windows if they are there. I also parked the car by the stack.
The alarm just went off while I was typing this blog, so Karen and I went into the back bedroom and I checked with the bino's. Sure enough the Deer were there. I gave Karen the glasses so that she could see, and then I hit the "panic button" on the car. Lights flashing, horn honking, deer peeing down both legs. We will see who gives up first.
A little sunset for you.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Ditches and poor choices- again.
Today was Jessie's turn again, and after we had flown Tami's little Kestrel, Meg, I took Jessie out of the car and suited her up. We had noticed some Ducks in the ditch behind Tami's house. Dave had been feeding the Cows in the far field, and we waited for him and the dogs to clear. I watched to see if the Ducks flushed when he crossed the creek, but they did not. I had Karen and Reuben to help me flush, so I turned Jessie loose and let her get some altitude.
She is in the upper left corner of the above picture. We let her get a bit more altitude, and then ran at an empty ditch. The fact that my curses were not audible, didn't mean that they weren't there. I started down the creek as fast as my old legs would carry me. I finally did flush a Teal that told me by its anxious dive into the Tules again that Jessie was still with me more or less.
After I had gotten across the fence and about a 1/4 mile down the ditch I hit some Mallards, but they too decided that the ditch was a lot safer than the sky. I would flush, they would fly down the twisting creek and splash in before she could get to them. She will (almost without exception) not hit a Mallard at speed, but she will bind with one and fight it on the ground. Finally after what I figured was about 3/4 of a mile, grabbed a hen Mallard, but apparently lost it when they crashed into the Greasewood. By this time both our tongues was hanging out and she sat down in a Greasewood bush. I had dressed way too well and was wringing wet, so I gratefully tossed her the lure. I had done my job, even though it was an inadequate one. I had produced Ducks. She had done the best she could and stuck with me for more than 20 minutes. No one wins every time, not even Jessie.
After I had gotten across the fence and about a 1/4 mile down the ditch I hit some Mallards, but they too decided that the ditch was a lot safer than the sky. I would flush, they would fly down the twisting creek and splash in before she could get to them. She will (almost without exception) not hit a Mallard at speed, but she will bind with one and fight it on the ground. Finally after what I figured was about 3/4 of a mile, grabbed a hen Mallard, but apparently lost it when they crashed into the Greasewood. By this time both our tongues was hanging out and she sat down in a Greasewood bush. I had dressed way too well and was wringing wet, so I gratefully tossed her the lure. I had done my job, even though it was an inadequate one. I had produced Ducks. She had done the best she could and stuck with me for more than 20 minutes. No one wins every time, not even Jessie.
JASPER
Jasper is still with us, but things are getting a bit tougher. I noticed him the other day and he was busy trying to get something to eat, and not getting much, at least that was my guess. I went out to lock up the Chickens for the night and when I opened the door to give them some food, there was Jasper inside the Chicken house. ( You may remember that the Chicken house was one of the main suppliers of Sparrow meat for him when we were hunting him. It is no surprise that if he felt it necessary to switch to Sparrows that he would remember where they could be found. ) He was not happy to see me at all, and neither were the Chickens that he was landing on in his panic. I opened the door and stepped aside so that he could fly out. He wasted no time in doing so. I finished my chore and went into the house to tell Karen of his adventures.
Karen went out to do her chores and when she returned told me that she could hear his "killy killy" alarm call, but could not find him. I decided to check the Chicken house again. There he was stuck in a bit of space under the eves. I reached in and picked him up, taking him outside and again releasing him again. He didn't want me to catch him, but he show no real sign of distress when I did. He has not gone back in again, but he is still here.
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